Im not in the least bit dogmatic. I generally vote instrumentally for the left of centre candidate who is most likely to keep this right out. I have worked for the Labour Party. On some economic issues Labour are to the right of the Overton Window of the Tories. And I can only see that gap increasing before the next election. I get that people don’t want to face the consequences of their actions but unfortunately it can’t always be avoided
With respect, I disagree that the point of voting is to help me and mine. It's about making things better for people we'll never meet too.
Fair point, definitely and I can agree with it. Think maybe slight confusion regarding me and mine sentence, I tried to explain that’s why I don’t vote, as long as me and mine are fine I’m generally happy with that. However for me, I do often help others through a good initiative we have at work and I’d rather directly help people here and now than indirectly (and may not help them mind) help people whom I will not know.
The overall centre of gravity of the Labour Party is still left of centre. Many on the left of the party are prepared to be pragmatic for now and reluctantly accept some of the tough choices being made by the cabinet but there’ll be a tipping point once the goodwill is exhausted. Maybe that point will be when the Welfare Bill comes to parliament?
Because I don't expect the Tories to go back to the centre ground. I'm also expecting a very serious backlash against Labour if things carry on the way they are, but I'm not sure what form it'll take yet. A lot of disgruntled lower income voters are clearly going to gravitate to Reform, but it's unlikely we'll see highly educated but financially squeezed middle classes voting for them en-masse. The only place centre-left, socially liberal remainers can go is the Lib Dems or the Greens, but under the current system it's a wasted vote in most places at the minute. If I was in charge of Lib Dem strategy, I'd be going all-out to hoover up votes from people like me at the next election, and not just in the obvious constituencies.
That was my feeling in the run-up to the election. But for me, tipping point has already been reached and breached. And I wouldn't describe myself as being particularly far to the left within the Labour umbrella.
Sorry that’s a simply not true. You may wish it to be but it’s not. Here we are back with national service https://x.com/barneyfarmer/status/1902101434209890608?s=46&t=j20zR706pmXrBtdI_7p-NQ
I suspect if the Reform vote stays where it is and an increasingly right wing Labour Party continue on the same trajectory then the Cons veer left a little. The one thing they do is adapt. Agree about the LDs they have to look to hoover up centre left votes alongside the Greens. Hopefully a non aggression pact between the two to maximise potential gains
I think the first principle kind of implies that such people will be disincentivized? I think many are forgetting that we are only at the green paper stage, so much will depend on the shape of the final proposals.
I think maybe the government realise with the rate of new claims and the amount of people currently on long term sick that something is a miss. And theres just a possibility many claiming or attempting to claim actually could work and contribute.
I suspect you’re in for a huge shock if it happened. This ‘Labour’ party, which I’m loathed to refer to it as, is a pale imitation of anything that went before - in fact it’s not even that. But Reform are backed near exclusively by tribalist bigots and they will pander to them at every juncture. This Labour government has been a huge disappointment so far - but it is yet to sink to the depths of some of the previous Tory administration - and Nigel and his band of new age Oswald Mosley’s would be a different thing altogether. The one saving grace is that it is in statute that Donald Trump can only be president for just less than another four years - so they wouldn’t be in power concurrently unless we have an early election. My only hope - and it is now only hope rather than having any expectation - is that the majority of mp’s in the party are still left leaning; that they are being pragmatic in following the cabinet’s instruction in acceptance of the need to recoup some of what has been lost over the last fifteen years, and that there will be a tipping point and a lurch back to more traditionally socialist policy at some point in the term of this government. I’m not holding my breath - but still. There’s hope. There’s a mayoral election as well as the council election in Donny in May. The only way I see Labour retaining the position is a split in the right wing vote between the Tory, Nick Fletcher, who lost his Westminster seat last year after displacing Caroline Flint in 2019; and the Reform candidate - who Adolf Farage is coming up to announce next week - charging a fiver a head to his minions to attend the event at the racecourse. Rumours are it will be someone ‘high profile’ - and they are also putting up 55 candidates for the council elections, of which I suspect at least half will start favourite. I am no fan of how this government has started off - but I am very fearful of things getting palpably worse. And Reform would be that, without any shadow of a doubt.
I don’t think even the Don would have success in changing that part of the constitution of the USA - Putin he is not. He’s also going to be in his eighties at the end of his current term. Maybe even me as the eternal pragmatist am being a bit optimistic in thinking that way though, I’ll grant you that.
Maybe it's just the ones I've met through work. Struggle to turn up Monday and repeat for 5 days, sensitive souls. Forcing them into the forced would be a recipe for disaster.
